Vernacular Anxiety and the Semitic Imaginary: Shem Tov Isaac ibn Ardutiel de Carrión and his Critics

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dc.contributor.authorWacks, David A.
dc.date.accessioned2012-11-02T17:24:34Z
dc.date.available2014-12-29T21:12:31Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.description.abstractShem Tov ibn Isaac Ardutiel (Santob de Carrión) lived in the fourteenth century, period of intense vernacularization of literary practice in Castile. Shem Tov has long been imagined as a model of multiculturality, and the lasting impact of his diglossic literary legacy is undeniable. He is a compelling case study of the role of Hebrew literature in the age of Hispano-Romance vernacularity. Shem Tov writes at a time when Spanish Jewish authors voice considerable ambivalence about the practice of vernacular literature. In this essay I offer a new reading of Proverbios morales and his Hebrew Debate between the pen and the scissors as veiled critiques of Castilian literary practice and a defense of Hebrew in an age of vernacularization. The ambivalence and anxiety that characterized Jewish approaches to the vernacular are mirrored by modern critics of the literature of Spain’s Jews. Spanish criticism of Shem Tov’s work is revealing of conflictive modern Spanish attitudes toward the role of Jewish authors in a national literary legacy. In the second part of this essay I demonstrate how the anxieties that characterized Jewish-Christian literary relations in 14th century Castile are still alive and well in 19th and 20th century Spanish scholarship.en_US
dc.identifier.citationWacks, David. “Vernacular Anxiety and the Semitic Imaginary: Shem Tov Isaac Ibn Ardutiel De Carrión and His Critics.” Journal of Medieval Iberian Cultural Studies 4.2 (2012): 167–184. Print.en_US
dc.identifier.issn1754-6559
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/12479
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherTaylor and Francisen_US
dc.rightscc_by-nc-saen_US
dc.subjectShem Tov de Carrionen_US
dc.subjectProverbios moralesen_US
dc.subjectSantob de Carrion
dc.subjectMedieval Hebrew literature
dc.subjectHispano-Hebrew Literature
dc.subjectMedieval Spanish Literature
dc.subjectDebate between the pen and the scissors
dc.subjectMilhemet ha-et ve-ha misparayim
dc.subjectMahberet
dc.subjectMaqama
dc.titleVernacular Anxiety and the Semitic Imaginary: Shem Tov Isaac ibn Ardutiel de Carrión and his Criticsen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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